HEALTH
Snake sightings rise
There were 13 reports of snake sightings in Taipei on Wednesday and Thursday last week, and in nine instances the snakes were caught, the Taipei City Fire Department said on Sunday. The department said it received 10 reports on Wednesday and three the following day. Following up on the reports, the fire department said, it caught nine snakes, including a 2m-long big-eyed rat snake in Tianmu (天母) and Taiwan habu vipers, turtle-designed snakes and red-banded snakes in Nangang (南港) and Beitou (北投) districts. Snakes that have been in hibernation regain energy and look for food during spring and summer, the department said. They will attack people only if they feel threatened, it said. Anyone who spots a snake should contact the fire department immediately.
SOCIETY
Car falls into sea, kills three
It was a night of tragedy for a family of four when their car went off the road and fell into the sea in Anping Harbor (安平港), Greater Tainan, on Sunday, killing three passengers and leaving the other seriously injured. The 37-year-old driver, surnamed Wu (吳), was cruising the harbor with his wife and two sons, aged eight and 10, when the car veered off the road and fell into the sea, a witness said. The witness reported the crash to firefighters who pulled the four from the water and sent them to three different hospitals. Wu and his two sons were pronounced dead, while his wife, surnamed Huang (黃), was still in a coma in an intensive care unit as of noon on Sunday, hospital staff said. Wu’s mother said she believed he was exhausted from late-night driving and that had caused the accident. Prosecutors will investigate the cause of the crash, the Tainan coast guard said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard